Sunday, September 25, 2011

A Nation of Hoarders

As I left my house Saturday morning, I noticed dozens of people picking through mountains of stuff assembled on various tables scattered along a sidewalk. It was my neighborhood's annual yard sale, and, judging by the large number of cars and trucks parked on either side of the street, this year's was a success. I've never had the urge to stop by yard sales, which is a pity as this was the third or fourth yard sale I'd passed this week. At one yard sale, we saw a woman practically skipping down a suburban Virginia street with a colossal 60-roll package of toilet tissue. You would have thought she'd just bought a Tom Ford-era Gucci dress in her size for a nickel!!

Maybe it's the recession that's fueling the yard sale craze. With consumer credit in a curious place, that buyer's rush has to be satisfied some way, so why not with a slightly used $3 denim jacket from Old Navy that you picked up from a stranger in their driveway?? But, really, this urge to have and to hold can become dangerous and obsessive. The Target stores have reported that their launch of a mid-priced line of housewares and apparel by Italian fashion house Missoni has resulted in a rash of buyers snapping up the items in bulk, cleaning out entire store inventories, and then reselling these items with a stiff mark-up on online auction sites like eBay. This takes the house-flipping concept to a new low!!

And what about couponing sites like Groupon?? That's great that you can get parachuting lessons for $15 instead of $115, and a $20 bag of groceries for $10 from your favorite whole foods store, and dinner for two for $30, but does anyone ever ask themselves, "do I really need this?" Why are we so consumed with consuming?

I guess, then, it's little wonder why the reality show, "Hoarders" has become so popular. While the cameras roll, we see living rooms piled waist-high with newspapers, kitchens overwhelmed by dirty pots and pans, whole bedrooms packed to the gills with clothing and trash, and, in the midst of it all, a person and their story of loss and loneliness. They stuff more and more and more things into their homes in an attempt to fill the emotional void. Some of them confront this crisis and clean up their act, but some will not, either way, it doesn't matter because the American TV-viewing public loves "Hoarders." Maybe it's good, old-fashioned schadenfreude that makes the show's fans tune in, but I think it's a lurking feeling that we have more in common with the hoarders than we're comfortable admitting. We want it, and we want it NOW, and we want it ALL!

You'd think we'd learned our lessons about the dangers of unfettered appetites, what with the now-global economic crisis, but I guess not. We still want and we still buy, only now, instead of plunking down our credit card at a pricey department store, we throw down cash for another's trash and claim it as treasure, and we don't even use it! How sad is that?? Hoarders take no pleasure in all that they've accumulated. They feel compulsion but not joy. Maybe joy is something that we all could use - real joy at our connections to each other instead of to another thing. I'm just saying:)

1 comment:

  1. Nice writing and commentary...saw your post on FB thanks to Nancy Vozar Knapp.

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